


Type O(nomatopoeia)

by robpatFF



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robpatFF/pseuds/robpatFF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looks up at Louis through big, almond eyes framed behind thick-rimmed glasses. His accent sounds heavy and honeyed when he says, “D’ya need any help?” and Louis can only shake his head no.</p>
<p>Or, the one where Zayn works in a comic book shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Type O(nomatopoeia)

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, don't own. I just think the world needs more Zouis, is all.

_zap_

The place is called London Eye Comics and Louis feels out of place as soon as he walks in.

The glass displays are streaked to an unbearable cleanliness, reflecting back at Louis as he peers at the newest editions, laid out and waiting to be sold. The shop’s got creaky old floorboards and vintage posters stuck up to the walls, faded visions of classic superheroes taped up and staring down at Louis. There are racks and racks of comics, old and new and used and worn and some so delicate that Louis is afraid to reach out and touch them, for fear they might crumple apart.

There’s a boy behind the counter. All inked black hair and blurred colors climbing over his skin. Letters and numbers and smeared lines of meaning. 

He looks up at Louis through big, almond eyes framed behind thick-rimmed glasses. His accent sounds heavy and honeyed when he says, “D’ya need any help?” and Louis can only shake his head no.

He shrugs, goes back to leaning over his sketchpad and there’s these stark, black lines on the page, Louis notices. Deep and thick and a bit of the ink smears on the boy’s hands, on his wrist and the tips of his fingers. Louis follows the movements of his hands across the page, the _whoosh_ and scrape of the pencil across the thick, white pad and the boy looks up again.

Confused, maybe. A little amused.

“Sure you don’t need anything?”

Louis shrugs. He steps a little closer and his feet feel too big suddenly, his gait clumsy and uncoordinated under the boy’s cool gaze. It’s late though, and Louis’s been out all day and this boy’s got ink on his cheek.

“Looking for a present for my best mate’s birthday,” Louis says. “He likes Batman?”

Suddenly Louis’s being shown Begins and Rises and spin-offs and more editions than he could have imagined. He wants to pick the right one, wants to see that squinty-eyed smile on Liam’s face because of Louis’ gift, so.

He has to pick the right one.

The boy smells like smoke and spice when he leans in and gives Louis recommendations. His fingers are careful over the comic pages as he flips through. Voice low when he murmurs _think he might like this one, it’s an original_ and shows Louis the edition date and the coloring of the characters and the condition of the edges.

“’s not even bent,” he murmurs, something like reverence embedded in his tone, so Louis picks that one for Liam. 

The boy rings Louis up and he’s got _zap_ inked in his skin, got a piece of a comic embedded right there in his arm, all bright and red and bleeding ink. 

“You a comic junkie, then?” Louis asks, grips his bag tight and hesitates before walking away.

The boy wrinkles his nose up. Zayn, his nametag says. _Zayn_ , and Louis wants to practice saying the letters, wants to see how the name sounds on his tongue, dragged out and slowed down and sped up. 

“Not much of a junkie anything,” Zayn says. His nose is squished up, in offense or distaste or something, maybe. “’m just really into comics.”

Louis leans against the glass counter, his fingers smearing streaks in its cleanliness. “Dunno much about ’em, to be honest. I usually just wait for the films. Iron Man and all that.”

“The films,” Zayn repeats. “You miss out on all the important parts that way, you know.”

Louis shrugs, shifts his jacket closed and watches the pink of Zayn’s mouth and wonders how it looks rounded over a cigarette. Wonders if the smokes blows out as pretty as he might imagine. 

It’s late and Louis’s tired and Zayn’s got ink on his cheek, is all. Most of the shops are closing up, and Louis’s got work in the morning, so he scuffs his foot against the creaky old stained floorboards and gives something like a wave.

Zayn does it back, his spindly fingers dotted and smeared with graphite. “Hope your friend likes his present,” he calls out, the words just barely rising over the bell chime of the door.

The bag feels heavy in Louis’ hand. The smell of smoke and cinnamon lingers with him and Louis thinks of inky black and bright red and brown, his eyes were. The boy’s. Zayn’s.

They were brown and Louis thinks he must be proper exhausted, if he remembers all that.

\-----

_boom_

Louis goes back.

It’s not like he’s got much else to do. He’s taken a year off between graduating uni and heading off to a teaching program and he’s. Well.

He’s bored, is the thing.

The other lads are still in uni, still got stress-creased wrinkles and exams and revisions and all Louis’s got is his empty flat that smells like tea and takeaway. Working at the coffeeshop only takes up so many hours in a day, and after awhile the smell of coffee seems to embed itself under Louis’s skin ‘til everything’s got that stale and bitter stench to it. His clothes and his hair and his shoes, even. 

And.

He’s been thinking about Zayn. Thinking about his eyes and his mouth and his fingers and the doodles he’d been drawing in his sketchbook, the sharp lines and edges of something coming to life. He seemed comfortable in his own skin, comfortable under the flourescent lights of the shop and surrounded by illustrated superheroes, all lined up at his fingerprints.

Louis envies that, maybe, the ease of just _being_. 

So.

He makes the trek downtown, through London’s foggy streets and past shop after shop until the London Eye Comics bell chimes over his head and Louis is assaulted with the dusty smell of old and new and collected comics, all laid out on display.

Zayn looks up. He’s got a cigarette tucked behind his ear, half-hidden in the inky black spikes of his hair. His smile is crooked and small but he recognizes Louis, from the slight nod of his head and the flicker of his eyes towards the huge Batman poster plastered up on the wall.

“Did he like it, then?” he asks. “Your friend, right?”

“Right,” Louis answers. His fingers linger on the racks by the door this time, spin them ‘round til he can only see flashes of their bright covers, block-lettered titles and the promise of adventure littered across their pages. “He loved it, actually. Thanks.”

Zayn nods. There’s no sketchbook in front of him now, just a thin comic, his fingers resting between pages to keep his place. 

Louis’ feet creak over the faded, worn floorboards as he approaches the counter. Zayn’s got music playing from somewhere under there, something Louis doesn’t recognize but it’s catchy anyway, heavy beat and a solid bass. Zayn’s eyes follow his movements, the unsettled tapping of Louis’ fingers against the counter and his mouth when he tries to smile, friendly and welcoming and a bit off, he knows. But he’s tired and Zayn smells like smoke and spice and something warm that won’t leave Louis’ head.

“I’m Louis,” he says. “In case you were wondering.”

Zayn’s eyes flick to the door and back to where Louis’s standing, his hip cocked against the glass and feet planted. “Are you looking for another present?”

“Not really, no.”

His shoulders hunch, Zayn’s do, just a little, when he realizes Louis isn’t going anywhere. His eyes narrow but he asks, “D’ya know anything about Green Lantern?” in that accent of his, all heavy, rounded vowels and curled lips. 

“Sure,” Louis says. He leans his elbows on the counter and peers down at what Zayn’s reading. _Green Lantern_ it says, and Zayn watches him close, waits for a reaction. “That’s the one with Ryan Reynolds, right?” 

Zayn blinks. “That’s not. That’s hardly the point.” He sighs, stands and walks around the counter and over to one of the racks. 

He’s skinny, Louis realizes, all bones and wisps of smoke and black blurred with colors. His trousers cling to his legs and his t-shirt hangs off his wiry frame. He’s breakable, maybe. In a good way. In a way Louis wants to find out more about.

He comes back with another comic in his hands, opens it up carefully on the counter when he sits back down and stares expectedly at Louis. “You gonna sit down, then?”

Louis hops up on the counter, scoots back ‘til he can see the comic Zayn’s got opened up in front of them. “That looks nothing like Ryan Reynolds,” he points out.

“’s not meant to,” Zayn replies. “There’s more than one Green Lantern.” His mouth turns down, almond eyes creased in dissatisfaction. “Do you really only watch the movies?”

Louis shrugs. “Sorry, mate.” He gestures at the comic Zayn’s got laid out. Intricately drawn faces and expressions and costumes. Another universe drawn out in the span of a few dozen pages. “I’d love to hear about him though. Them,” he amends. “So go on, then.”

\-----

(Zayn lights the lamp after he closes up the shop and shuts the big lights off, the two of them huddled over the counter, eyes flicking from panel to panel and Louis gets caught up in it, despite himself.

Zayn reads much faster than Louis does, but he waits patient after, his spindly, smudged fingers delicate when he turns the pages.

“D’ya get it?” he asks, hushed in the dim light and his inky black hair falls in his face like shadows, like jagged edges that seem soft to the touch. “Want me to explain it to you?”

Louis says yes, so he can hear the hesitant but knowledgeable explanations Zayn gives. He glances over at Louis like he’s waiting to be made fun of, but it doesn’t happen, so he keeps talking. Nudges Louis’ shoulders and talks about _Guardians of the Universe_ and _Green Lantern Corps_ and his accent gets thicker, stronger, as the night wears on and his eyelids droop and Louis presses closer. ’Til they’re sharing the same space and reading panel after panel, late into the night with Zayn still whispering hushed bits of knowledge and Louis hums along, enchanted, really.)

_pow_

\-----

“Think I met someone,” Louis says. 

Harry’s eyes flick up to him, scone stuffed half in his mouth and curls falling into his face. He’s got bruises under his eyes, too many nights at the library, probably, and Louis finds himself missing it, a bit. The stress of it. The having something to do. 

“Hm,” Harry mumbles. “Like a Greg someone?”

“Not like a Greg someone.” Louis’s not really sure what that means, actually, but Harry’s staring at him, and Louis would rather him not. “Like a. Just a someone, Harry, honestly.” 

They’re in the crowded coffeeshop where Louis works, and Harry won’t stop glancing at his watch. Louis nearly had to beg him to meet for lunch, ignoring his protests about revisions and studying because Louis can’t get the smell of smoke out of his clothes, like it’s clinging no matter how many times he washes them. 

Because he’d taken a bus to the other side of town just to get a few more issues of _Green Lantern_. Because he’d stayed up late last night, burrowed under his covers like he did as a kid, crossed-legged and enthralled with a different world. Already drawn out and created, waiting for his consumption.

Because Zayn had doodled something weird on the meat of Louis’ hand before he’d left a few nights back, a little stick figure with fluffy hair and a cape.

“It’s a little superhero you,” he’d said. He signed it _zm_ , “So you don’t forget me.”

And Louis still rubs the spot where it had been, though it’s long since washed off.

“You should bring him ‘round to our flat once exams are over,” Harry says. “So he can pass the lads test.”

“Lads test.”

“You know.” Harry’s all knocked knees and pointy elbows with the way he’s folded up in his chair across from Louis. Too long limbs and an awkward grace that suits him. Louis misses him, misses this, misses uni and their friends and passing a joint around until they’re all lazily draped over one another and half-asleep. “The same test Grimmy had to pass.”

Louis wrinkles his nose. His coffee’s gone cold and he contemplates tea now, something spice-flavored and hot. “Has he actually passed yet?”

“Stop it,” Harry murmurs. “You like Nick. And I’m sure we’ll like. Um. Your someone.”

“Zayn,” Louis supplies. Though he’s not actually Louis’ someone. He’s a boy with shaggy black hair and ink smudges on his hands and a crooked, hesitant smile. He makes Louis smell like smoke, is all. Like cinnamon spice and heat. “I’ll have to ask.”

It’s easy to let Harry go after that, once he’s told someone and doesn’t feel like he’s holding a secret tight against his chest.

Zayn smells nice, is all. Crisp like autumn and the scent sticks. His fingers travel slow over animated superheroes and Louis thinks Zayn might have his own universe inside him, drawn carefully behind his almond eyes.

_bang_

\-----

_wham_

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Louis asks. 

Zayn’s eyes lift up from his page. It’s Iron Man today, and Louis smiles. “Reckon I’m already grown up, aren’t I?”

“Hardly,” Louis says. “Since when’s twenty grown up?”

Zayn sets his comic down on the counter. It’s near closing, always near closing when Louis stops in, and there’s not expected to be any customers in this late. “I’m studying English,” Zayn tells him. “So maybe I’ll be an English teacher one day. What d’ya think of that?”

“A worthy cause,” Louis says. “I want to be a teacher, too. Drama.”

“Oh yeah?” Zayn traces his finger over the intricate contours of Iron Man’s suit, and Louis expects it to be replicated on his hand or arm or ankle by the end of the night. “Why aren’t you in a program then? Since you’ve graduated uni and all?”

Louis shrugs. He’s got Batman in his hands, gentle with it, he knows, because he can feel Zayn’s hawk-eyed stare where his fingers grip the pages. “Just needed a break, I s’pose.”

Zayn blinks, like he’s expecting more. He traces idly over Iron Man, lazy now that he’s probably got it in his head how he wants to draw it. 

Louis opens his mouth. Closes it. Thinks about his words in a way that he usually doesn’t. But he wants to. He doesn’t know, really, but he wants Zayn to get it.

“Doing a bit of that finding myself rubbish,” he ends up saying. “Trying to figure out who I am. Something stupid like that.”

“’s not stupid,” Zayn says. “But it’s easy. You’re Louis.”

Louis laughs. He’s sat on the stool Zayn had dragged out from the back, perched precariously on the seat with his ankles crossed. “Okay. I’m Louis. Who are you, then?”

Zayn frowns at Louis’ hands, where he’s crumpling the edge of a page, clumsy. “I think I’ve always just been Zayn,” he says. 

“That easy?”

“I’m Zayn and you’re Louis, that easy,” he replies.

\-----

_whoosh_

Louis brings coffee after he’s done his closing shift, when Zayn’s still got about an hour and his eyelids droop over the novels he’s got to read for class.

“My hero,” he mumbles. It’s too late for coffee, for caffeine, but they drink it anyway, won’t regret it even when their fingers shake late into the night and they can’t sleep. “Have I told you that?”

Louis hums, blows away the steam at the top of his cup and presses his fingers into the doodle adorning Zayn’s wrist. A superhero taking a final bow on stage, red curtains closed behind him. “Your superhero?”

“Always.”

Louis presses his fingers into Zayn’s skin so hard that bits of the drawing come smudged away. Until Zayn draws it over again, more carefully this time.

\-----

“D’ya wanna meet my friends?” Louis asks. 

They’re on _Captain America_ now. The reds and blues stand out against Zayn’s skin, and Louis can imagine the colors on Zayn’s arm, by his shoulder or on his wrist, maybe. The shield drawn careful and precise. Can imagine his own fingers smoothing over it, the rightness of such a thing inked on Zayn. 

Zayn turns the page. This isn’t his favorite, Louis knows, but he says they need to read through all the comics that have movies now. So Louis can go back and understand everything. 

“Do you want me to meet your friends?” 

Louis huffs. He’s less interested in Steve Rogers and more interested in the curve of Zayn’s jaw, the sharpness of it contrasted in the lamp light. “They’re having a party this weekend. Come with me.”

“As what?”

“What do you mean?”

“As what?” Zayn repeats. “As your friend? Or like. I don’t know.” He shrugs. Hunches in on himself and stares down hard at the comic underneath his fingertips. “Think I might be busy this weekend anyway.”

He’s got faded bruises under his eyes. Too many late nights that Louis can’t bring himself to feel sorry for, too many nights spent huddled over a comic, Zayn’s same murmured explanations and soft breathing. 

Smoke and cinnamon.

“As Zayn,” Louis says. “You’re coming as. I don’t know. My Zayn.”

Zayn wears a leather jacket Saturday night when Louis meets him in front of Harry and Liam’s flat. It smells like trapped smoke and faded nights out and sex a bit, when Louis leans into him.

He’s got a copy of Batman under his arm, and Louis pulls it out, wrinkles his nose when he sees the cover. “You brought your comic books to a party?”

“I brought _one_ comic book to a party,” Zayn says. “Figured if it’s awkward I can hide in the bathtub and read.”

Louis drags him up the steps. There’s music already, something loud and unfamiliar from Harry’s speakers that makes the walls vibrate, makes the beat echo under Louis skin to where his fingers are clasped with Zayn’s. Tight.

The boys greet him with inebriated hellos, red-faced and laughing and clingy already. Greet Zayn with curious looks and hugs and kisses on his cheek, to see if he squirms. 

He doesn’t, and Louis meets Harry’s eyes over Zayn’s shoulder for a moment. Pleased.

“Are you the one that told Louis to get me that Batman comic for my birthday?” Liam asks. “It was an original, did you know?”

“I did know,” Zayn tells him. He lets Liam tugs him into the kitchen, gets a cup of something or another in his hand, in his mouth, his eyes warm and his mouth curved into something like a smile.

“He _is_ like a Greg someone,” Harry says, heavy-limbed and close when Louis looks back. “You lied to me.” 

“I’ve dated other people besides Greg, you do realize,” Louis tells. He pokes Harry’s side, digs in until he squirms away. “I’ve dated you. Maybe he’s a Harry someone.”

Harry hums. He smells like liquor and cologne and soap. Clean and comforting and Louis leans into him. He’s familiar. “No way,” he says. “I’m your only Harry someone.”

“You are.”

They smoke, late. When the music’s been turned down enough that they can open the windows and air the flat out. Niall’s got the only light, goes ‘round and shotguns with everyone once, just because he can.

Zayn sits pressed up next to Louis, their thighs pushed together and Louis’s got a drunken stick figure drawn on his hand, sloppy and smudged. Zayn breathes smoke out into his face, laughs when Louis pinches him and retaliates.

His pupils are blown wide, eyes set on Louis and a slow, sticky smile on his face.

Louis traces the tattoo on Zayn’s collarbone, the birds on his hand, the _zap_ from long ago that still sits bright on his arm. They listen to Harry and Niall argue over the merits of ordering food this late, to Liam try and get them to settle down, but the smoke makes him giggle too much, makes his eyes go all crinkly and Zayn leans over and runs a finger over the wrinkles, teasing like him and Liam have been friends forever.

They stumble into Harry’s bedroom since he’s fallen asleep on the couch. Louis fumbles with the door, hazy-high and sleep-slow and hot where Zayn’s hands grip his waist, where his fingers run up the hem of Louis’ shirt. It’s warm under the covers, where Zayn’s skinny limbs tangle with Louis’, his pointy elbows and his sharp jaw and ribs all pushed up against Louis in the bed.

“What about now,” he mumbles, voice low and rumbling in the dark. “Your Zayn?”

“My Zayn,” Louis agrees. He presses sticky sweet lips to Zayn’s, tastes smoke and alcohol and nerves, jumbled frayed nerves and he kisses them settled. “In the morning, too.”

“I’m Zayn and you’re Louis,” Zayn murmurs. His accent is slow and sweet, stumbling over his clumsy tongue and swollen lips. “Easy.”

“Easy.”

_bam_

\-----

_zam_

Even Zayn’s skin smells like old smoke, the back of his knees and the inside of his trembling thighs. 

He tastes clean, when Louis runs his mouth over his hips, his ribs, his tummy when he arches up. He bites his lip when Louis pushes him back down, Louis’s fingers spread out over his belly, next to his heart tattoo and something written in Arabic. Louis runs his mouth over that too and Zayn shivers.

Shakes.

His mouth tastes like stale coffee, bitter dregs of what Louis had brought over to his flat after work, so Louis kisses the taste away until all that’s left is them, Louis and Zayn. Louis runs careful fingers over him, gentle like he is with the pages of Zayn’s beloved comics, more so, probably, because Zayn is wide-eyed and boneless underneath him. Fragile, almost. Breakable like Louis knew he would be.

His hair is soft, the inky black spikes sticking straight up on his head, messy and tousled from where Louis tugs at them, tugs Zayn closer to kiss and to touch and to feel.

“Wanna come,” Zayn murmurs, and Louis sucks a bruise into his neck for his troubles. ’Til there’s a perfect red mark there, then his collarbone, then his jaw, stark and obvious like his tattoos. 

Louis’ Zayn.

His knees are knobby, skinny as anything when Louis lifts them up, bends them back to Zayn’s chest.

Louis’ fingers are slick when he pushes in, presses up deep inside Zayn ‘til he’s murmuring a _come on, come on_ and Louis’s shaking from nerves and arousal and he’s clumsy with it. Zayn doesn’t seem to mind though, because he pushes back against Louis’ fingers, back arching a bit and his mouth open, pink and swollen. 

“That it?” Louis asks, and Zayn laughs a little, gasping and breathless.

His tattoos stand out against his white sheets, the colors bright and vibrant when he twists and moves against Louis’ fingers, when he takes a hand to his cock and he curses, black hair messy against the bed. “Come on, come on,” he says, and Louis twists his wrist a little. 

Zayn’s soft during the comedown, breathing heavy and shaking a bit, little aftershocks.

He’s heavy-lidded as he watches Louis get himself off, murmurs, “Let me see you come, wanna see,” until Louis spills over on his hand, boneless and trembling as he drops next to Zayn on the bed.

Zayn grabs a marker from his nightstand. Draws a little figure on Louis’ side. Another superhero, cape askew and hair wild and his eyes shut. Colors it in so dark that a bit of the ink smudges on the sheets, on Zayn’s fingers and different parts of Louis’ skin.

“Superhero,” Zayn murmurs.

“Always,” Louis tells him.

\-----

They’re back to Batman. 

Zayn sits close to the lamp and Louis crowds next to him, their eyes going over panel after panel of the comic laid out on the counter.

“You know,” Zayn says, breaking the silence, “I figured out who you are.”

Louis hums, finishes the page and nudges Zayn’s shoulder to get him to turn it. “Thought I was just Louis.”

“You are,” Zayn agrees. “But you’re my Bane, too, I think.”

“Not a superhero anymore?”

Zayn shrugs. He looks small in his jumper, his hair soft and falling in his face. “D’ya have to be just one thing?”

“Guess not,” Louis says. “I know who you are too.”

“I’m more than one thing?”

“Yes,” Louis tells him. “You’re also my someone, maybe. Like a Zayn someone.”

The bell chimes and Zayn slides past Louis. His hand lingers on Louis’ waist and he smells like cinnamon and smoke, like always, and Louis breathes it in.

Easy.

_ka-boom_

\-----


End file.
